The Smart Phone Explosion is Driving Mobile Talent Part 2 of 2

Yesterday I shared a few data points from our new white paper Smart Phones in the Workplace, which will be published next week. [Click here to read Part 1] It is a survey of professional workers regarding their smart phone usage which provides some interesting insights on the impact of mobile technology on workplace communications.

All of the stats are showing that smart phones are now being acquired faster than computers and the gap is expected to widen dramatically in the coming years. It is clear that employees in general have more access to mobile devices during the work day than they do desktop computers. This is particularly true in certain industries like Retail, Hospitality, Transportation, and Healthcare and represents a new opportunity to connect and engage with employees like never before.

Here are a few more insights from the report:

We asked the participants how often they use their smart phone. 91% use the smart phone to access information more than 3 times per day, 64% access information more than 10 times per day. Had we known the numbers would be this high, we would have added some more categories like 15 and 20 times per day.

We then asked what types of information they accessed.

96% of respondents use their smart phone to access email. This is very much in line with my original educated guessing that a large percentage of email is being consumed on mobile. The graph to the left shows the other types of information most commonly accessed through smart phones.

But the next question revealed the most interesting insight. We asked which device they used as their primary tool for reading and writing email.

While it is clear the laptop is still the most common device for handling email, more than 30% of respondents say the smart phone is the primary source for reading email, and 10% for writing/sending email. The most interesting observation is that the tablet is barely even showing up.

Only 2% said they use the tablet as a primary tool for reading email, and zero said they use tablets to write email. While there are many predictions that tablets will rule the world of mobile, this data tells us that is not very likely or at a minimum it is still a long way off. In my opinion, the tablet represents a replacement for laptops, while smart phones represent the new frontier. It means I will use an iPad for the tasks that I am currently doing on my laptop, like writing this blog. But my smart phone will become my primary device for interactive content, communications, anytime, anywhere.

What do you think?

The white paper will be out soon, be sure to subscribe to this blog to be notified when it is ready for download.